


Braids

by Wind_Ryder



Series: Methuselah's Children [6]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Found Family, M/M, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25510510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: After leaving Merrick Labs, but before Booker's banished, Nile changes her hair. It's too much of a hassle to clean blood out of her cornrows and there's no good way to take care of them like this.Nicky offers to do it for her, which leads her to wonder: just how did he learn to care for a black woman's hair?
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Methuselah's Children [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839811
Comments: 58
Kudos: 994





	Braids

They call a 48-hour truce. Everyone wants to get the hell out of the country and as far away from Merrick Labs as they can get while still being close enough to manage a fallout. Everyone is also bone tired and wants to sleep, and as much as  _ some  _ members of the team are considered  _ highly untrustworthy _ , they all mutually agree to just put things on pause for a few days. Well. At  _ least _ until everyone has showered, eaten, and slept a full eight hours. So they call a truce. 

They crash at a safe-house that’s marginally better than the church but lightyears away from Andy’s cave. There are two full baths, and they divvy up the cleaning rotation relatively quickly. Nicky and Joe take the first shower together. Andy tells Nile to take a shower in the second bathroom while she and Booker have a chat. Nile knows better than to press the issue and is more than a little relieved to just take a minute to herself. 

She feels like she hasn’t had a minute since her throat was cut in Afghanistan. Just sixty-seconds to breathe without feeling like the world ending is more than enough to leave her slightly dizzy. She hesitates only for a moment, before dunking her whole body beneath the lukewarm hotel spray. She hesitates just long enough to weigh whether the shower could mess up her cornrows anymore than they already were, then decides she genuinely doesn’t care. There’s no shower cap, but there’s almost certainly blood on her scalp. She’ll figure out her hair later. 

The water feels heavenly. She lets out a breathy moan just feeling it cascade over her body. Her skin feels hypersensitive where it was pieced back together time and again. She rubs over each spot she’d been shot. She even traces the path of her bones, pieced back together after her swan-dive from the penthouse. The memory forces a half-hearted giggle up from her throat. 

She spends the rest of the shower just breathing in the steam. The blood sank down the drain, washing away any thought of the nightmare she’d been through. When she’s done, she wraps herself in a towel and tilts her nose up at her bloodied clothes. A light knock at the door answers her next immediate question, though. “I have some clothes here for you,” Andy says on the other side. “I’ll leave them in the hall. They’re not the best, but we’ll get more tomorrow.”

“All right, thanks,” Nile calls out. She waits for Andy’s footsteps to retreat, then fetches the too big t-shirt and sweatpants that might well be the most comfortable things she’s ever worn in her life. They come with a hoodie too and she sinks into its plush heat. 

Nile makes her way down the hall and announces the bathroom’s free. Nicky and Joe have just emerged, and they cajole Booker and Andy to go get cleaned up while they see what’s edible. “How are you feeling?” Nicky asks as she approaches. 

“As well as I’m gonna feel, I think. What about you?” 

“The same, I think. Tired. I cannot tell if I want to eat or sleep. I know I should do both but,” he shrugs and waves his hands and it’s such a Mood™ that she nods.

“Ain’t that the truth. Hey is that chocolate?” Joe’s opened about every cabinet in the kitchen looking for sustenance and the brown wrappers seem too good to be true. He plucks them up and tosses them to her. 

“Check the expiration,” he warns, but it doesn’t matter. Chocolate doesn’t go bad. She tears the wrapper with her teeth, breaks off two pieces for Joe and Nicky, then stuffs the rest in her mouth. Her stomach lurches gratefully, emitting a pained gasp before hungrily begging for more. 

“Your hair,” Nicky says suddenly. She’s already started in on the second bar and she pauses just long enough to notice he’s staring at her. 

“Huh?” 

“Do you need help with it? The braids—” he breaks off, as though not sure what he wants to say. He glances back to Joe, but Joe is only frowning. 

He offers no assistance, so Nile’s on her own to figure this one out. “Oh, yeah, um. Tomorrow I’ll get a comb and brush ‘em out. I’ll see if I can find someone to do something with them. Probably something less tight if I’m gonna get blood all over me on the regular.”

“I can do it.” He says it so quickly she barely understood it. It didn’t even sound like English. But he repeats himself, slower this time: “I can do it...if you like.” 

“You...know how to do hair like mine?” she asks carefully. As far as she can tell, the only woman he spends a great deal of time with is Andy and her hair is  _ nothing  _ like Nile’s. But hell, she knew Nicky and Joe the least out of all of them, so maybe they do have some secret talents of a domestic kind. 

“He does,” Joe says in Nicky’s place. He seems to have given up searching for proper food, and has instead retrieved a handful of takeout menus from a drawer. It seems a bit absurd getting take-out to a safe-house, but Nile guesses someone’ll drive out to pick it up rather than do a delivery. It’d suck to leave so soon, but they really do need to eat something. “It’s been a couple hundred years though,” he adds on. “So feel free to say no.” 

That sounds slightly less appealing than it had already. Nile isn’t sure she even  _ wants  _ to know what kind of hairstyle Nicky was giving people a couple hundred years ago. All her mind can conjure up are giant white wigs and nothing else. “It’ll probably be faster if I just get it done somewhere.” 

Nicky doesn’t appear too upset by the prospect. Instead he gains an almost thoughtful look. “Do you think I could go with you?” he asks. “If we are going to be working together, it would be a good skill to know, yes? I think I could remember how it is done, if I watched it.” 

“It’s gonna take a while, you sure you’re up for that?” 

“If it makes things easier for you, of course.” He smiles, bright and happy, as if they hadn’t just pulled him from a medical lab. As if he hadn’t been shot and tortured by crazy people for the past week. 

In the face of such exuberance, Nile can say only one thing: “Well, if you really wanna go, who am I to stop you?” 

And in the morning they head out together to her appointment. Yolanda at  _ Best Braids _ says she had a cancellation and can just squeeze Nile in if she makes it there fast enough. Nicky drives and they arrive within five minutes despite it being on the other side of town. “You’re never driving anything except an escape car  _ ever  _ again,” Nile threatens as he grins with his teeth. He may look innocent, but he’s a  _ shark  _ and she knows it. 

Yolanda greets them both with a smile, and when she hears about Nicky’s interest in learning how it’s done her enthusiasm apparently triples. “You’ve got the most supportive boyfriend I’ve ever seen,” Yolanda whispers to Nile. It takes everything for her to not correct the assumption. Immortal Team Member isn’t exactly an easy relationship to describe. 

Pleasantries aside, Yolanda tsks at the state of Nile’s rows. “You gotta take better care of these if you’re gonna have them in,” she says sternly. 

“Yes, ma’am,” is all Nile can say in response. It’s the best she can do. 

They start with untying the ends, then Yolanda shows Nicky the metal pick that helps unravel the braids. She explains the different oils that are needed to keep the hair in good condition, and at one point asks Nile if she’s comfortable letting Nicky try undoing the last few rows. Nile agrees, and finds that his hands aren’t nearly as rough as she’d been expecting. He carefully maneuvers the pick and detangles with an expert’s touch. Yolanda sings his praises and winks at Nile in the mirror. 

Regret blooms in Nile’s heart as embarrassment threatens to overcome her. Nicky’s got his Angel’s Grin on, the one that makes you think he’s actually a nice guy and not liable to shoot you in the face with a machine gun. Nile knows better. He’s a highly capable soldier when he wants to be. Not just some pushover. But he lets Yolanda flutter about and tease and prod Nile, and he doesn’t once correct Yolanda’s assumptions. 

By the time they get ready to rebraid her hair, Nile is exhausted by the bantering that’s taken place above her head. She feels worn out and ready to just sleep the world away. Still, their hands work efficiently on her scalp. She wanted something more manageable than a full set of rows, and two braids would definitely make things easier. Next time she cracks her head open, she probably won’t need to redo the whole thing. Maybe just a few touch ups. 

The end result is delicate, fierce, and entirely worth it. Nile tilts her head side to side. It’s perfect. She even buys some products from Yolanda to make sure everything stays that way for as long as possible. “Do you want to set another appointment in a few weeks to take them out?” 

“I think Nicky’s got it,” Nile replies to both Yolanda and Nicky’s utter delight. She rolls her eyes at them both as they head back to the car. “You really did know what you were doing,” she says as she snatches the keys from his hand and goes to the driver’s side door. 

“Some of the tools have changed,” he shrugs. “The materials are much nicer now than they once were.” 

“You do someone’s hair a lot?” 

“Every few months or so for a few years, and then sooner once I realized it should be done more frequently. Joe is right, though. It’s been several hundred years since I’ve tried. I’m glad I didn’t forget much!” 

It seems like a good end to the conversation, and Nile doesn’t think much more on it. 

That is, until a few days later when Nicky and Joe take her to a little house a few hours outside of London. A house with painting hanging from the walls of loved ones they had over the years. A house with a portrait of a beautiful young woman, with black skin and tight braids. 

Nicky and Joe had agreed to let her bring her mother and brother here, so she could explain her new life. She waits, patiently for her family to arrive, surrounded by the love of Nicky and Joe’s former families. Standing before the painting of a woman who lived hundreds of years before her, Nile feels a thrill of something warm settle deep within her gut. She touches the frame in reverence. “Thank you,” she whispers to a woman long dead. “Thank you for teaching him. I’ll keep him safe for you,” she promises. “Both of them.” She doesn’t ask who she is yet. But she will sometime soon. 

For now, she has something more important to do. She’s going to talk to her family, and she’s going to let them know she’s in good hands. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find and prompt me at: falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com


End file.
